Hello, I know this has been discussed here, but I can't go far enough back to find it.. Can someone please point to the suggested procedure for replacing the timing belt, water pump, and oil seals on a 97 Impreza? A list of required parts before tearing into it would be greatly appreciated! And, of course, opinions on a good online source of parts would be great.
I have to do this on my wife's car ASAP as she'll be taking a long trip...
There is currently a significant front end oil leak...
Posting a step-by-step proceedure would be beyond the patience of most of us. I'm pasting my long description of my experiences with the job. Note that you don't need an online source of parts, just call Jason at Auburn Subaru in Wa and he'll take care of you, probably at a better price than online.
You probably ought to get a genuine Subaru manual. There is an online source of pdf manuals, or else you can buy a compiliation CD on ebay.
Old post follows...........................
I have a '99 Legacy Outback with a 2.5l DOHC engine and 85k miles. The front crankcase oil seal had started leaking about a month ago, pushing up the 100k timing belt change inter- val to now.
Being a lazy person at heart, I decided that I would change everything that might be a problem as long as I had it apart. The shopping list included plugs, fan belts, timing belt, crank and cam oil seals, water pump, thermostat, gaskets, timing belt tensioner, top timing belt cover gasket, oil pump o-ring, Subaru gasket sealer, fresh antifreeze and spark plug anti-seize compound.
All Subaru parts were purchased from Jason at Auburn Subaru. The parts came 2 days after I ordered them, with a 25% discount, no sales tax and very reasonable shipping.
I started on the project Friday a week ago. The first issue was finding a loud squeak in the fan belt area that had been driving my wife nuts. Taking off the belts one at a time showed that it was the aircon belt idler pulley. I took it out, popped off the shields, cleaned out the hardened grease and replaced it with fresh grease. The squeak went away.
After the belts and fan were removed, the next issue was the crank pulley. After trying a bunch of different things, I fabricated a tool to hold the pulley similar to the Subaru tool. It's a plate with 4 pins that engage the 4 holes in the pulley. The edge of the plate rests on a vertical 4x4 that sits on the ground. The crank nut came off with probably 200 ftlbs of torque. I used my lathe and mill to make the tool. Your mileage may vary. I plan the keep the car for at least another 6 years so I felt that making the tool was a reasonable investment.
After I got the pulley and belt covers off, it became clear that I'd need more working room so I started pulling off parts. I removed the radiator, air filter box, battery, windshield washer box, and the 2 little covers under the car next to the fenders.
Next I removed the timing belt tensioner, oil pump, timing belt idler pulleys (3) and water pump. I checked the oil pump back plate and sure enough,
2 of the 5 screws were loose. I removed all of them, cleaned them and their holes, applied Lock- tite and reinstalled them. While I had the plate out, I popped out the old seal and pressed in the new one. I cleaned the RTV sealer from the mating surfaces on the engine and the oil pump, applied new sealer, put on the new o-ring holding it in place with some grease and re-installed the oil pump making sure to reconnect the crank position sensor.
The water pump was trivial to replace, and probably did not need replacing as the old pump and thermostat looked like new.
Next, I removed the timing belt tensioner and unpacked the new part. It was clear that the tensioner that I received was for some other Subaru, not the one I had, effectively ending the job until I could get the right one.
A call to Jason on Monday got me the right part on Tuesday and a UPS pickup slip to return the wrong part.
The new tensioner installed with no problems, just one bolt.
The next job was the camshaft seals, all 4 of them. The Subaru manual calls out a special tool to keep the sprockets from rotating while they are being removed. I should have broken the bolts loose before I removed the timing belt. In any case, the sprockets on the driver's side did move causing me much concern about damaging a valve. When the mark on the crank sprocket is aligned at 12 o'clock, the drivers side camshafts are sitting with 4 of the valves depressed, giving a hair-trigger nature to the sprocket. The passenger side valves are all closed and are not a concern as they have no tendency to rotate.
I pried out the old seals and tapped the new ones in with a tool that I made from some thick-wall aluminium tubing.
Next, I replaced the sprockets and back covers. I then installed the timing belt. I decided to turn the engine over with a breaker bar the make sure that everything was free. There was a lot of resistance when the crank sprocket mark was at 3 o'clock. This caused me a huge amount of concern that I might have bent a valve and that it was sticking up.
I stared at the engine for a long time, pondering whether or not to pull the driver's side head to look for damage. I decided to pull the valve cover and see if I could tell anything. I took the cover off and felt the cups under the cams as I turned the crank to 3 O'clock. I couldn't feel anything. Next I removed the camshafts and cups, and with my fingers lightly on the valve stem ends, I turned the engine over. I still couldn't feel anything. Com- pression seemed to be fine as well. I decided to put everything back together and see if it would run. I noticed that when I turned the engine over with an ordinary 1/2" drive socket wrench, in- stead of a breaker bar, the resistance seemed to be reduced and the same for
3 o'clock and 9 o'clock, the 2 TDC positions.
Anyway, after about 3 hours, I had the new plugs installed, the timing belt buttoned up, the fan belts on, the radiator and fans back in, the air filter box and battery installed.
I decided to refill the cooling system with water until I knew whether or not I'd be tearing it down again.
I was almost physically sick with worry as I first jogged the engine with the ignition switch. It turned over fine. I cranked it and it caught right away. There was some tapping as the oil started to flow, but it disappeared quickly.
I drained the water and put in 50/50 anti- freeze. I had changed the coolant before and I anticipated the hassle of getting the air out of the system. After about 30 minutes of fiddling, the car was driveable.
I put about 150 miles on it today. No oil leaks. The only issue is a squeek when the aircon compressor comes on at high RPM. I'll give it a few days to sort itself out before I'll much with it.
So, would I recommend a non-mechanic change their own timing belt? Probably not. I may have saved myself $300-$400 in labor, but I ate up 2 weekends. I also have a spare car I can drive.
Not my site, but this guy wrote a how-to with pictures on doing the timing belts on the svx - which is basically identical to the 2.2L as far as the belts go. It was very helpful when I did mine - I managed to do them in 2.5hrs my first time by following his tips.
Only pointers I can offer is, make sure the WP gasket in proper place before tightening the bolts. Due to plump location it isn't easy to see without a second pair of eyes. Was doing this job myself and gasket slipped and I didn't notice until I got under the car to reinstall the water hose.
You might find the alignment marks on the cam pulleys slightly (maybe a half tooth) off, making it look like the belt is not installed right. Subaru mech told me this was not too uncommon. This may not be an issue on all model engines but it got me to worrying on my 2.5 SOHC model.
I saw it on the DOHC as well. If you're paranoid you can count and mark the old timing belt before taking it off and verify the position by the tooth count.
I used something my son had (don't recall brand) that is blue a gel and doesn't harden. Has worked great every time we've used it.
I'm not sure what marking the timing locations on the old belt would do for you but to give you a tooth count. The belt I used was already marked. Did note the marks were spaced differently than noted in factory manual but were spaced correctly except for the half tooth thing.
For those of you that have changed the belt. What tool do you use for the crank pulley? I found a camshaft sprocket wrench at Snap-On tools for about $43. Would that do it? I read the torque is supposed to be 115 pounds. I need a good wrench to hold that thing for that kind of torque.
What I did recently was to use 2 large bolts that fit fairly tight in the holes in the pulley and used a prybar across the bolts. With a second pair of hand holding the prybar I was able to remove the center bolt without much difficulty.
BUT: HOW do you get access to the flywheel on a 2.2L engine??? A quick look (obscured by all the oil from the Bad Seal) doesn't find an obvious opening or bottom cover. Help!! I gotta get this done this weekend! (97 Impreza, 2.2L).
Here's his instructions:
----( copy )---------
Crank Pulley Removal
Now for the hardest part of the of the installation. Not exactly like its difficult...just its one stubborn bolt. To remove the pulley do these steps:
First off, crawl under your car and locate your flywheel. (This is where its much easier to have two people to do this. As you will need to be under the car and the other person will be loosening the main bolt.) Once you found the flywheel, you need to insert a large flat screwdriver into the splines. Hold this here while your friend takes off the pulley bolt. HOLD TIGHT! This will keep the engine from turning. 2. The other person (unless you figured out a way of keeping the flywheel from turning), take off the main bolt with a 22mm socket.
I did this recently and used a chain vise grip. It's cheap and it works also for holding the cam sprockets. Just use a piece of drive belt to protect the pulley. Thighten just enough and the handle will catch on the alt bracket permitting use of both hands to work. Use a piece of the old cam belt when you remove the cam sprockets. The handle then catches on an idler pulley or soemthing else. I recommend it.
Sounds good, Mickey. The factory Service Tool is a bar with a disc with a hole in the center that goes on the front of the pulley with two protruding pins that must fit in those holes you mentioned.
There is a similar different tool to hold the cam sprockets.
I bet there's an aftermarket general-purpose tool that can do this...
You're right that what I did was not unlike how the factory tool works and the price was right. Before starting the job I saw a pic of the factory tool and gave it a little thought and said, why not this.
I just used an old broken belt, slapped it around the sprocket and clamped my vise grips to it. Worked better to hold the the shaft in place than any regular tool I have ever tried!
Well, the work on the '95 1.8 Impreza is done! My first time working on a Subie. We did crank and cam seals, oil pump seal, water pump and thermo. and gasket, timing belt and center cover. It runs like a champ so far!
Now I need to do the same to my '96 sometime soon.
I opened the cover to the flywheel on the passenger side and wedged a punch in to hold the crankshaft. I used a rubber strap wrench on the cam sprockets. The passenger side sprocket had over 100 ft. lb. torque on it.
Next time around I'll try to get some pics out of it.
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